


Sick From Hunger, Unable to Pay

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ficlet, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: Every morning he woke up, convinced that a new day would’ve brought him a step further, whilst too many times he had to realize how the world around him kept spinning, and how still he was, always on the same pictures, always on the same memories.





	Sick From Hunger, Unable to Pay

_[A dream, it was a dream but it wasn’t brief_

_that’s why I decided to be a doctor_

_and not for a god but nor for a game:_

_just for the cherry-trees to blossom again]_

People fall, often.

At times they manage to get back on their feet, at times they don’t.

Yet he had been the only one capable of staying in a limbo, in the middle of earth and sky, during his whole life.

There had been a time he could’ve called serene. A time long gone, which he had tried strenuously to erase from his mind, to finally manage to stand up again, to sink in his shadow the cowardice that had always marked him.

And yet he was still in that stasis, since fifteen years, just because all he deemed important had withered, too fast and too painfully.

Every morning he woke up, convinced that a new day would’ve brought him a step further, whilst too many times he had to realize how the world around him kept spinning, and how still he was, always on the same pictures, always on the same memories.

Like the turning of seasons, Lily had left his life and the world.

She had her summer, with James, with her son, and he had hated her for it.

She had her fall, with fear in her eyes, with the horror of losing everything she had built, and Severus had almost managed to relish in her anxiety, save then feeling like the worst of humans.

She had her winter, come too soon, in a night still fully autumnal, catching her off guard.

She was never going to have another spring.

And Severus was starting to believe that spring wasn’t going to come for him either.

That’s why he kept moving in the shadow of her smile, living in those memories, which gave him infinite drops of joy, mixed with the worst stabs of pain. Half living, trying to fix an irreparable mistake.

His mission, terribly groundless, was to fight for all Lily had died to protect, even though it went against what he hated by nature.

The face of James Potter on that arrogant boy, who with is silly recklessness was proving himself so little inclined to safety.

Severus would’ve never done it for him and, he had to admit that, not even for himself.

Severus Snape knew he had a place with his name burned upon in hell, and after all he had little desire to end up in a heaven he didn’t deserve.

And yet, if Dumbledore had been right, if there was still some hope left for him, he wouldn’t have risked to wander the blue skies, meeting Lily in death knowing he had done nothing for her son, for the one who still bore in his veins a part of that blood that Severus owed everything to.

As an Unbreakable Vow with death, Severus kept living only to save the symbol of all that had been taken away from him.

 

_[And then I understood, I was forced to understand_

_that being a doctor is just a job_

_that you can’t gift people with science_

_if you don’t want to catch the same illness_

_if you don’t want the system to starve you]_

And Potter, stupid as his father, fed on the hatred he felt for that man, about whom he knew nothing.

Severus hoped he never found out about his true motives, about how much he was fighting the good fight, just because he relished in that hatred, he found there the strength to make his choices.

Because he didn’t care about Potter’s respect nor his pity, just because they loved the same woman, because they both knew the pain of missing her.

As the time went by, he had realized there was nothing he could do, but he had decided that keep trying would’ve been the key to his redemption, that his wearing a mask one day would’ve led him on the road that, years before, he hadn’t had the courage to take.

He was reduced to a sort of sentient corpse, ironically similar to those Death Eaters that he betrayed each minute, yet he was in this condition for reasons completely divergent from theirs.

He would’ve laughed of his condition, if he had remembered how.

For fifteen long years he had convinced himself he could’ve done something to help himself, and Lily’s memory with it; whilst now, on the verge of the abyss, he realized he’d always been useless, that he could do anything but waiting for the destiny to come to him, to take him away from that ruin.

And he would’ve welcomed it, with open arms.

 

_[And a judge, a judge with the face of a man_

_Sent me to leaf through sunsets in prison_

_Useless to the world and to my fingers_

_Labelled forever crook and liar]_

He relished in Potter’s disappointed face, he who deemed him the worst of man, but for sure not capable to make such a thing to the man he owed everything to.

His wand was still burning after the Curse just casted, but he couldn’t feel any sadness, not yet.

On his face, Albus’ image was burned, his prayer to end that slaughter, to keep going on, without his guidance.

And Severus would’ve done it because, unable to choose between right and wrong, had always followed his directions.

Now he was walking down a dark path, alone, as he had always been.

His final act was about to start, and he couldn’t wait patiently for the moment of his finale, when he would’ve finally bowed out.

 


End file.
